Even the British Have Had It

Have a nice day, your Highness---Lee

The Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime: extravagant and out of touch with the American people

From blogs.telegraph.co.uk

August 7, 2010

by Nile Gardiner

Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and

political commentator. He appears frequently on American and British
television and radio, including Fox News Channel, CNN, BBC, Sky
News, and NPR.

What the great French historian Alexis de Tocqueville would make
of today’s Obama administration were he alive today is anyone’s
guess. But I would wager that the author of L’Ancien Régime and
Democracy in America would be less than impressed with the
extravagance and arrogance on display among the White House elites
that rule America as though they had been handed some divine right
to govern with impunity.

It is the kind of impunity that has been highlighted on the world
stage this week by Michelle Obama’s hugely costly trip to Spain,
which has prompted a New York Post columnist Andrea Tantaros to dub
the First Lady a contemporary Marie Antoinette. As The Telegraph
reports, while the Obamas are covering their own vacation expenses
such as accommodation, the trip may cost US taxpayers as much as
$375,000 in terms of secret service security and flight costs on Air
Force Two.

The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a
worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and
large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in
the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of
indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are
struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the
mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-
style proportions.

While the liberal-dominated US mainstream media have largely ignored
the story, it is all over the blogosphere and talk radio, and will
undoubtedly add to the President’s free falling poll ratings. As
much as the media establishment turn a blind eye to stories like
this, which are major news in the international media, the American
public is increasingly turning to alternative news sources,
including the British press, which has a far less deferential
approach towards the White House.

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